Stealing elaborate beer glasses has become an increasingly popular trend among patrons of Belgian beer bars, so much so that in recent years owners of such establishments have started implementing all sorts of safety measures. For example, one bar in Ghent asks visitors to hand over one of their shoes as collateral.

Belgian beer is famous the world over, so it’s no surprise that tourists flock to beer bars when visiting the European country, but lately many of them have developed a habit of leaving with a souvenir. Philip Maes, owner of The Beer Wall bar in Bruges, said that he loses over 4,000 beer glasses a year, which can get pretty expensive, as many of these glasses are elaborate works of art custom made for his establishment. A beer glass can cost up to 50 euros ($55) so having thousands of them stolen adds up to a significant financial loss. So Maes and other bar owners have implemented security measures to discourage beer glass thefts.

Inspired by 17th century German monks who allegedly survived on a rich beer called doppelbock during Lent, an Ohio man has embarked on a 46-day beer diet, dropping all solid food until Easter Sunday.

Many Christians choose not to consume beer during Lent, as a way of abstaining for something they find pleasurable, but Dell Hall, the director of sales at Fifty West Brewing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, is doing the exact opposite. On March 6th, he embarked on a 46-day beer diet, dropping all solid food and getting his nutrients only from beer and vitamin supplements. Although he admits the first few days were rough, Hall claims he now feels amazing and is 25 pounds lighter than when he started.

Chemotherapy has many nasty side effects, and one that patients often find particularly frustrating is dysgeusia. This side effect causes food and drink to taste bland, bitter, or metallic. Now, a Prague based cancer advocacy group has come up with a solution to that problem – a non-alcoholic beer called Mama Beer.

Mamma Beer has been formulated to help breast cancer patients overcome the symptoms of dysgeusia. Its flavor profile has been engineered to make it taste good to those undergoing chemotherapy, but in addition to it’s great taste, the beer also contains a range of vitamins and minerals that have been known to help people deal with cancer treatment.

In an attempt to raise awareness about the ability to turn wastewater into safe drinking water, a brewery in Stockholm, Sweden has launched a new beer brand made with recycled sewage water.

Aptly called PU:REST, the new beer crafted by Stockholm’s Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (New Carnegie Brewery) in collaboration with the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) and Carlsberg is supposed to convince people that “second-hand water” can be as clean as normal tap water. IVL claims that the challenge to get people to drink recycled water is not a technological one, but a psychological one, so what better way to convince consumers of the purity of treated wastewater than using it to create a beer.

The Beer Wall, a popular bar in Bruges, Belgium, has recently installed alarm sensors on all of its beer glasses as well as a scanner at the entrance, in order to deter patrons from stealing them.

All of the roughly 1,600 Belgian beers sold at The Beer Wall are served in their own specially designed glasses, some of which are apparently very interesting. From goblet-like glasses that usually accompany abbey-made beers, to glasses shaped like hourglasses or even sliced coconut shells, the famous Bruges bar has plenty of attractive glass artworks. The problem is that many visitors, tourists in particular, don’t settle for feasting their eyes on these unique glasses while sipping a cold one. Instead they steal them as souvenirs, ignoring the warnings in four languages on the bar’s beer mats, which state state that the glasses are not free, and that they can be bought from the souvenir shop next door.

When you think of Mace pepper spray, ‘awesome beer flavor’ is probably not the first thing that comes into your head, but that’s exactly why the adventurous people at Dog Head Brewery decided to create the world’s first mace-flavored beer.

Dogfish Head Brewery is known for sometimes using weird ingredients – from pork scraps to dust from lunar meteorites – to create unique brews, so this collaboration with Mace Security International to create a mouth-numbing beer is not that unusual. Called “In Your Mace!”, the limited edition drink is partially brewed with oleoresin capsicum, the active ingredient in Mace’s pepper spray.

Having trouble deciding between white wine and beer? Thanks to artisan wine maker in Belgium, you can now have both in the same bottle.

49-year-old Filip Decroix, an experienced winemaker from Ypres, has spent the last year trying to perfect the formula for his “Steenstraetse Hoppewijn”, a sparkling white wine with a beer-like bitterness created by combining Chardonnay with Belgian hops. Decroix claims that he set out to create a wine that Belgians, known mostly for their beer, would appreciate and after having it tested by expert sommeliers, he is sure it will be a big hit.

Hugues Derzelle, a cattle breeder from Chimay, Belgium, believes that one of the secrets to great tasting, marbled beef could be beer, so for the past few months he has been giving some of his cows four liters of dark beer every day.

Derzelle says he came up with the idea after reading that Japanese Kobe beef producers massage their cows, play them soothing music and give them beer to drink. A quick Google search reveals that this is nothing but a myth, albeit a very popular one, but that doesn’t seem to have mattered very much to the Belgian breeder. Since November, he has been treating two of his cows to four liters of local Sara de Silenrieux dark beer, in the hopes that it would improve the marbling of their meat as well as the taste.

San Diego-Based Stone Brewing, the ninth-largest brewery in the United States, recently unveiled its newest creation – a pale ale brewed using recycled water that “comes from the toilet.”

Aptly named ‘Full Circle’, the unique beer is made with 100% recycled waste water from the Pure Water demonstration plant in Miramar. Chief brewer Steve Gonzalez admits being skeptical about using recycled water to make beer and asking for analysis results before even considering it, but says that Full Circle turned out to be one of his best works yet, probably in the top three pale ales he’s ever brewed.

Our senses of taste and smell are diminished at very high altitudes, and airlines apparently take this into consideration when developing their food menus, but until now, no one had tackled this issue when it came to beer. Luckily, one airline has recently announced a beer brewed specifically for consumption at 35,000 feet.

Betsy Beer, a brew formulated with the “ingredients, aroma and necessary carbonation to taste great both in the air and on the ground”, is the brainchild of Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific in collaboration with McCann Worldgroup. It’s named after the company’s first ever airplane, and is produced Hong Kong Beer Co. using UK-sourced hops called ‘fuggle’, honey from Hong Kong, as well as dragon-eye fruit also known as ‘longan’.

Virginia-based brewery the Veil Brewing Company has taken the dessert beer category to a whole new level with its innovative “Hornswoggler” brew, a a chocolate milk stout aged on hundreds of pounds of Oreo cookies that even has icing chunks in it.

They say Oreos go best with milk, but the guys at the Veil Brewing Company apparently decided prove that beer works too. And they hit it out of the park. After launching the Oreo-flavored brew on January 24, the 64 cases available sold out almost instantly. The company then sold what little they had left as on-draft at the brewery, in Scott’s Addition, Richmond. That didn’t last very long either, and now the brewery is getting bombarded with questions about the next batch.

If you’re looking to get a head start before a wild night out with your friends, this Shower Beer created by Swedish brewery PangPang in collaboration with creative agency Snask will probably do the trick.

The shower hardly seems like the best place to enjoy a nice, cold brewsky, yet some people have been doing it for years. However, the problem with showers is that they’re usually quick, so you don’t have the time to gulp down a whole bottle of your favorite ale. To solve the problem, a group of ingenious Swedes have come up with a smaller, stronger beer designed to be consumed while showering.

A London-based brewery has recently launched a unique service that uses cutting edge genetic profiling to create “the world’s most personalised beer”, based on the client’s DNA profile. And it “only” costs £25,000 ($30,550).

Ciaran Giblin, the brewmaster of Meantime Brewery, was the world’s first brewer to have a beer tailored to his own DNA, and was so satisfied with the result that he teamed up with a personal genetics company called 23andMe to offer this bespoke service to other beer enthusiasts with money to spare.

“Having been aware of the potential of at-home genetic mapping, I sent a simple saliva sample to 23andMe; the results gave me the tools I needed to develop a recipe based on the elements my senses are most attuned to enjoy,” Giblin said. “I’m delighted with the result and opportunity it has given us to really push the boundaries of innovative, personalised brewing.”

Dutch beer maker De Prael Brewery claims to have discovered the holy grail of alcoholic drinks – a pilsner-style brew laced with ingredients that greatly reduce the chances of next-day hangover and leave drinkers feeling fresh.

Thomas Gesink, the owner of Amsterdam-based De Prael Brewery, says he came up with the formula for his revolutionary beer after being challenged to create an alcoholic brew that would allow consumer to go to work the morning after without having to deal with the symptoms of hangover. So he and his team of brewers started researching what ingredients they would need to add to achieve their goal, while making sure that they didn’t affect the taste of the beer.

While the exact recipe for this 4.5%-alcohol hangover-free beer remains a closely-guarded secret, Gesink revealed that the main wonder ingredient is vitamin B12, which prevents headaches. “It is actually the only vitamin which can be dissolved in water, and that is why you can brew with it,” he said. The unique beer also contains sea salt to prevent dehydration, ginger and willow fibers, which are known to have a cleansing effect on the body.

The two founders of Scottish brewery BrewDog have both legally changed their names to ‘Elvis’ after being threatened with legal action by the Presley Estate over their grapefruit and blood orange IPA, called Elvis Juice.

Formerly known as James Watt and Martin Dickie, the two Elvises sought to prove that their new name is not exclusive, so they went ahead and got their birth names legally changed, by deed poll. In a witty response to the King of Rocks and Roll’s estate, the two write: “We’re caught in a trap and suggest the grey-suited hound dogs at the Presley Estate recognise that the name Elvis is not exclusive. So in an effort to patch it up, we’ve changed our names to highlight our burning love for the best grapefruit IPA out there. From this point forward, Elvis Juice is named after us, the brewers formerly known as James and Martin. We may even file a case against Mr Presley for using our names on all his records without our written permission.”